


Pack Street: Live Once, Die Twice

by MisterEAnon



Category: Pack Street - Fandom, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Implied Manslaughter, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:50:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9602462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterEAnon/pseuds/MisterEAnon
Summary: They saw you live once, and die twice.Charlie's died once. And now that they've pulled her back, she finds she can't live with herself after what the monster did wearing her skin.(Ventfic.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a vent-fic. Someone thought it was worth putting on a03, though.

One of the first things they told her when she woke up was that she wasn't liable for what she'd done while under.

 

She was told that the courts had decided that any counts of manslaughter committed under the influence of the Nighthowler toxin were, legally speaking, crimes attributed to one Dawn Bellwether, rather then the victims.

 

I had told them that didn't help, and one of them had admitted that a lot of other predators had said the same thing.

 

After the nighthowler was out of my system, they told me I could go home. I knew that wasn't true, even as I used a hospital phone to call Al for a ride back to Pack Street.

 

I couldn't go home again.

  
  
  


Al filled me in as he drove. I wasn't in the mood to talk. He didn't expect me to, either.

 

“You missed the funeral,” he informed me curtly. “Nobody blames yo-”

 

“I blame me,” I replied, cutting him off. “I don't want to talk about it.”

 

He didn't take his eyes off the road, but he tilted his head toward me all the same. “You need to talk about this with someone, Charlie. I can talk with V- A lot of victims have been court-issued therapists, and--”

 

“Just drive.” I muttered, slumping against the car door to my right.

 

He shut up and drove. I knew he'd press the point later, once he'd actually talked to his fiance. I didn't care.

 

I just needed to think.

  
  
  


I pushed open the door of our-

 

Of… My apartment.

 

It was quiet. Empty. I had thought I had wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

 

I knew now that was a mistake. I didn't want to be alone. But I was always going to be alone now, no matter how many people surrounded me.

 

I padded into ou- My bedroom. My paw reached into a drawer that had never been used, as far as he'd known, and withdrew a bottle of pills.

 

There was a saying. I think it started with the Eweish, somewhere. They said you died twice- Once when you stopped breathing, and once when somebody says your name for the last time.

 

I shook my head as I rattled the bottle, easing the lid off. I disagreed.

 

You died the first time when you were hit. When you went savage, and lost control. You died, and the only thing left is a monster in your body, lashing out at everyone and everything.

 

I had died, and the monster had killed the only reason I had to live. I just hadn't realized that's what he was until after the fact.

 

Until after the funeral.

 

Even as I stood in my own room, I knew I could never go home. Home was where he was waiting, quietly reading or angrily pacing or arguing with the TV. Home was where he'd sit in my lap and read with me, critiquing the stories I read, and showing a passion for the little things in life that far exceeded my own.

 

Home was where Marty was.

 

One day, people would forget the nighthowler. It would be a story from their parent's age, or a tale from their grandparents. The fear and distrust would be forgotten, and the sun would still rise.

 

I downed the bottle in one go, screwing my eyes shut even tighter then usual, and fell into bed, rolling over.

 

There would come a day when people forgot the name of the monster that had killed Marty, and then I could finally be free.


End file.
